Stellaria graminea (common starwort, "Karafutohosobahakobe")

Japanese name: カラフトホソバハコベ （樺太細葉繁縷）
Scientific name: Stellaria graminea

[Overview]
A perennial 20–50 cm tall, found along roadsides, in vacant lots and on riverbanks.
The stem has 4 ridges, is hairless and smooth without fine granular projections, and branches well from the base.
Leaves are simple and opposite, linear, 1.5–4 cm long and 0.2–0.4 cm wide, with a pointed tip and long marginal hairs at the base.
Cymes at the stem tips and in the leaf axils bear 10–40 flowers sparsely.
The flowers are white with 5 petals, about 0.5–1.2 cm across, but because the petals are deeply split in two, they look as if they have 10 petals.
There are bisexual flowers and female flowers, and the bisexual flowers are larger.
There are 10 stamens in bisexual flowers, and 0 to a few in female flowers.
The fruit is an elliptical capsule 0.6 cm long.
The seeds are round, 0.1 cm across and pale brown, with raised ridges around the edge.

[History]
A specimen collected in Hokkaido in the early 1960s exists, and naturalization in Hokkaido has been confirmed.

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